Visionaries eBook

The day had advanced, the sun was very warm.
A shaft of light fell upon the cold stone floor, and
in its fiery particles darted myriads of motes.
Hyzlo followed their spiral flights, thinking all the
while of humanity which flashes from out the dark
void, plays madly in the light, only to vanish into
the unknown night. His gaze was held by the smoothness
of the flagging at his feet. Then it became transformed
into marble, the walls of his cell widened, and he
closed his eyes, so blinding were the long ladders
of light....

II

TWO DREAMERS

He opened them ... the harbour with its army of galleys
and pleasure craft lay in the burning sunshine, its
surface a sapphire blue. Overhead the sky echoed
this tone, which modulated into deeper notes of purple
on the far-away hills whose tops were wreathed in
mist. Under his sandalled feet was marble, back
of him were the gleaming spires and towers of the
great city, and at his left was a mountain of shining
marble, the Pharos.

“Alexandria?” he called out as he was
jostled by a melon-seller, and startled by the fluted
invitations of a young girl—­an antique statue
come to life.

“Of course it is Alexandria,” replied
a deep, harsh voice at his elbow. He turned.
It was his friend Philo.

“You have at last emerged from your day-dream,
Hyzlo! I thought, as our bark clove the water,
that you were enjoying visions.” And it
seemed to Hyzlo that he had just awakened from a bizarre
dream of a monastic cell, to more beautiful sights
and shapes and sounds. The pair now traversed
the quay, past the signal masts, the fortified towers,
pushing through the throng of sailors, courtesans,
philosophers, fruitsellers, soldiers, beggars, and
idle rich toward the spacious city. Past the palace
to the wall of the Canal, along the banks of the Royal
Port, they finally struck into a broad, deserted avenue.
At its head was a garden wall. Philo introduced
himself and his companion through a low door and presently
they were both in an apartment full of parchments,
glittering brass and gold instruments all reposing
on a wide, long table.

“Hyzlo,” said the Jewish philosopher,
in his slightly accented Greek, “I have long
promised you that I would reveal to you my secret,
my life work. I am downcast by sadness.
Rome is full of warring cults, Greek, African, Babylonian,
Buddhistic; the writings of the great teachers, the
masters, Heraclitus, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Plato, Socrates,
Epictetus, Seneca, are overlaid with heretical emendations.
The religion of my fellow-countrymen is a fiery furnace,
Jerusalem a den of warring thieves. The rulers
of earth are weary and turn a deaf ear on their peoples.
The time is ripe for revolt. Sick of the accursed
luxury and debauchery, fearful of the threatening
barbarians from Asia and the boreal regions, who are
hemming the civilized world, waiting like vultures